No idea, I’ve always found 10 minutes to be more than sufficient. I generally prefer not to muck with game balance by making conflicts take longer than 4 minutes; this affects balance for Hivers and node-using races especially.

No idea, I’ve always found 10 minutes to be more than sufficient. I generally prefer not to muck with game balance by making conflicts take longer than 4 minutes; this affects balance for Hivers and node-using races especially.

Hivers have gate ships. When defending, they can gate in reinforcements between combat rounds as long as their deployed gate ship is alive. Longer combat rounds means the deployed gate has to survive longer, making life harder for Hivers than otherwise. It's even worse on the attack since the gate ship has to survive in the reserves or on the map for a full combat round before it can be deployed, and then survive another round on the map before reinforcing can happen.

Node races can only hit where the nodes go, which makes them somewhat predictable -- Zuul especially. One trick they sometimes use to be less predictable is to hit the front line with a fleet, just try to survive the turn if facing heavy opposition, then move somewhere deeper behind enemy lines the following turn to force the enemy to react. This tactic is harder if combat rounds are longer, since such a fleet can expect to incur more damage before being able to move again.

For everyone in general, defense is harder if combat rounds are longer. You have fewer opportunities for defensive reinforcements to travel to the combat zone, and less opportunity to repair between turns. Strong enemy fleets have longer to bombard your planets. Fights in general are more decisive, so guerilla tactics and trying to buy time is not as effective.

Well you could have faster ships on the tactical map (either by playing as a race with faster tactical speed or with better engine tech), or you could be fielding ships with powerful long range weapons, in order to punish the enemy for trying to run away and keep the distance open if that’s what they try to do.

Of course they could just sit in close order at the spawn point and dare you to come to them, in which case it plays out more like a slugging match and you just need a stronger fleet. Depending on how deep their reserves are and how strong your fleets are relative to one another, you may or may not be able to kill them all before they get the opportunity to keep moving.